Dancing
by Nixa Jane
Summary: She can look, but she can't touch. ML.


Author's Note: I'm not sure about the exact time frame, probably sometime early season two.

She's never danced with Logan. Not once. She has to remind herself of this, because there is a vague memory that haunts her sometimes. This perfect memory, with soft lights and tinted gold, where Logan spins her around until she gets so dizzy it all fades right away. Logan can dance now. He can leave the chair whenever he wants, he can step into the exo-skeleton and it's like nothing ever changed.

So, yes, Logan can dance, but only with someone else, because if she gets too close she'll kill him. Besides, they have their own twisted brand of dance now, anyway.

Logan inches closer and she inches away.

She's not afraid of most things, but she's terrified now of touching him. It would be so easy to forget, so easy to fall into the daydream and reach out. One wrong move, that's all it would take.

"You're not going to hurt me," he whispers, but she still backs away, casually, as though something has caught her attention out of the corner of her eye and she's only moving towards it, and not away from him. He sees through the semblance like it isn't there, because he's Eyes Only, and sometimes she thinks he sees everything.

"Not so long as I don't touch you," she snaps, but doesn't meet his eyes. He sighs, but he stops moving closer, and her breathing slows down even as the threat still lingers.

Logan thinks it's her that's reckless, but he's taken as many crazy chances as her. He would experiment with this just to see how far they could tempt fate—would close in on her if she let him. Logan would press against the limits until they were lowered or he was dead, and she couldn't risk that. She was reckless—but not with him.

So they danced around each other all night until she was cornered, and forced to slip quickly past him towards the door. "I'm going home," she says, grabbing her jacket, but Logan never lets her get away with anything and he follows her to the door.

"You don't have to leave," he tells her, and smiles, like things are just as they've always been. She can't bear to look at him, because when she sees him it kills her not to touch. The irony that it really would kill him doesn't escape her notice.

She remembers, out of nowhere, jumping off a building to grab Logan's hand. If she did that now she would only kill him slower—better now to let him fall. She shakes her head, walking quicker, increasing the distance and vowing from now on to carry gloves. "I do," she says, but she's done being angry. She can never blame him, not for this, not for anything, and Manticore is gone. A scapegoat would be nice, but she can't find one. "I'm poison, remember?"

She'd thought so before, always thought she was poison. She would think just that, just that exact thing, and like Renfro had known she had brought her nightmare to life. And if she had never gotten Logan wrapped up in this, Manticore would not have cared about Eyes Only at all. She almost laughs, because she's poison in more ways than one.

Some people liked to talk about destiny, fate or whatever. She doesn't know what had Logan pulling that curtain aside just as she looked out the window, or why that statue had so caught her eye, but she was pretty sure it marked the start of the end for them both.

He reaches out now, but she steps away and his hand pauses mid-air. He's forgotten for a moment, and forgetting is dangerous. She should leave—not just his apartment but his life, Seattle altogether. Her only reason for staying has always been to protect him, and now she's become his greatest threat.

"This doesn't make me stop loving you. Nothing can," he whispers, and she can almost hate him, because he always stops her leaving before she can. She loves Seattle but its Logan that makes it home, and though that scares her she can't shake it off.

She would say it back, tell him she loves him, but he knows. She likes to tell Cindy they're 'not like that' but they were. They've always been that, probably even before they started dancing together in their dreams. She's not reckless with him, though, so she says nothing and slips out the door, closing it softly behind her.

He can't stop loving her and she can't stop loving him. It was the worst part of it all, because they would both be better off if they could.


End file.
